This story happened a long time ago, just after I joined the Esoteric Order of the Monks of the Mountain. They were intense days of many discoveries, encounters, and internal victories. When I accessed interesting content, both philosophical and metaphysical, I used it as a lighthouse to illuminate some of my many imperfections. An endless task. It was a time of important personal transformations due to the change of perspective that these studies provided. When I returned the following year for another cycle of learning, I was glowing. All that well-being vanished within the first few days. Godofredo, a monk who had entered the Order only two years before, enrolled in the same courses I was attending, immediately showed hostility toward me without any apparent reason. At first, he relied on irony and sarcasm, abject forms of violence that use ridicule to attack and coerce, every time I spoke on any topic. In private, in personal interactions, little by little he dropped the malice and mockery and became more openly harsh with his words. When we were among other monks, he would resort to disdain, another nefarious form of aggression. The situation worsened because Godofredo had a strong impact on the group, whether due to his physical presence and handsome facial features or his remarkable social intelligence. He had the gift of captivating and charming people. Wherever he went, he would quickly become the centre of attention, telling stories, jokes, or complimenting everyone. Or almost everyone. In his own way, he controlled the group of novice monks. Without realizing his dominant nature, people liked him and stayed around him. Yet, my presence seemed to bother him. I had no idea why. I was never the most handsome or intelligent person anywhere I’d been. Nothing about me had the power to overshadow Godofredo’s social radiance. That aggression oppressed and disturbed me to the point of affecting my sleep. I would wake up in the middle of the night with unsettling thoughts of hypothetical situations where he depended on my goodwill to get out of a problem, or I imagined myself retaliating against his aggression with even more violent actions. I confess that at times I daydreamed about having superpowers to release all the discomfort inside me. Cornered and emotionally unbalanced, I let hatred take root in my heart without realizing it.
The discomfort escalated to the point where I began considering cutting that cycle of study short, even before it ended. Perhaps not even returning the next year. There were other places and ways to continue the path of self-knowledge. There always are. I remembered my childhood in a neighbourhood with complicated and almost savage relationships and values, where survival and morality were upheld by precarious and questionable principles. It was a difficult time. There was also the ever-present sense of rejection due to the complicated relationship I had always had with several family members. The perspective and purpose I had developed, toward myself and toward life, had changed a lot because of what I had learned at the monastery over the past years. Physical, moral, or verbal aggression no longer belonged to the palette of choices with which I had decided to build myself and walk the path of time. Nothing that could extinguish my inner light interested me as a mechanism of movement through existence. Yet, the Order no longer felt like a pleasant place. It was time to leave. Perhaps for good.
That’s what I told the Elder, as we affectionately called the longest-standing member of the Order, in the moonless early morning when I found him making coffee in the mess hall while everyone else was still asleep. The kind monk offered me a welcoming look, full of kindness, compassion, and patience, as if saying that “forever” is too long. He pointed with his chin to the last table, by the windows with a view of the mountains and the starry sky. I sat down. In no time, he brought two mugs of fresh coffee and sat beside me. He gave a gentle nod, inviting me to speak, and added, “Open your heart’’. I spoke for minutes I couldn’t keep track of. I told him what had happened, confessed my hurt and the discomfort I felt in staying at the monastery. The studies had had a marvellous effect in terms of the transformative opportunities they offered. I had discovered a lot about who I was not, and found many aspects of myself that needed to be rebuilt. The world and reality had changed because my gaze had changed and started to see everything, people and situations, from a perspective that had previously been unusual and unthinkable. My expectations had been exceeded. I was deeply grateful, but it was time to go. The Elder furrowed his brow and said, “The produce truck shouldn’t take long. If you want, you can catch a ride to the train station.” He took a sip of coffee and said, “What a pity, right at the moment the workshop opened for your works.” I said I didn’t understand. He explained, “Up until now, all the discoveries you mentioned relate to the school, the learning phase. You had access to ancestral teachings and thoughts. Contrary to what many believe, wisdom and love are very ancient. Texts like the Sermon on the Mount or Plato’s Dialogues, just to name a few examples, remain revolutionary more than two thousand years after they were shared with the world. Though you accessed rich content that changed how you see yourself and the world around you, the transformative effect is not yet complete. This is the next stage, the workshop, the moment to use that knowledge to rebuild what is poorly built inside you.”
I interrupted to ask how I could identify what needs internal reconstruction. The Elder answered immediately: “Everything that hurts, frightens, or bothers you.” Then he added, “Irritations, impatience, intolerance, resentments, anger, unspoken desires for revenge, feelings of helplessness, sadness, aggression, insecurity, giving up, stubbornness, discouragement, in short, every manifestation of suffering or fear reveals something poorly built, incomplete, or misunderstood. They expose the corrosion of our inner structures. We must fix these imperfections to prevent the movement of life from knocking us down. When it does, the impact tends to be devastating. So much so that some people take a long time to recover from the ruins of their own collapse.” He took a sip of coffee and reminded me, “No one has the power to bring anyone down. We fall due to the imbalance and fragility we get used to living with.”
He paused before reflecting, “Just when life opens the workshop for you to carry out the necessary evolutionary transformations using the knowledge and discoveries you’ve made, you choose to leave.” I said I needed to practice detachment. The Elder shrugged and pointed out, “It’s important to understand the true meaning of words to avoid misusing good content. That’s how illusions are born.” He took another sip and clarified, “Detachment is not the same as giving up. Detachment means letting go of what binds you and keeps you from moving forward. Giving up is refusing to go on because you believe you’re incapable. We abandon who we are when we hide behind the unspoken truth. Lies are born the moment we bury the truth”. I argued that not everyone is born strong and balanced. The kind monk corrected me, “Strength is a choice. Balance is an achievement.” I asked him to explain further. The kind monk was patient: “Contrary to what many believe, strength has nothing to do with brutality, nor does it show up in pride, pompousness, or arrogance. These are traits of the weak pretending to be strong. True strength is light and gentle. Firm, but loving. It’s a genuinely subtle power that lies in willingly accepting evolutionary challenges. It’s not avoiding the necessary movements to process your experiences until they no longer cause pain or fear, nor fuel or prolong conflicts. The result of this ongoing and endless process is balance, allowing one to endure the difficulties of existence without panic or collapse, like a tree with deep roots, able to withstand the harshest storms without being uprooted or rotting.” He drank another sip of coffee before concluding, “You’ve made good use of the school so far, but you’re giving up on using the workshop. Leaving is a choice, and a right.”
The day was breaking. That’s when we heard the noise of the produce truck. The workers would take a few minutes to unload the crates. The good monk looked at the backpack, which I had already packed, resting on the chair next to me. Then he looked at me as if saying goodbye, letting me know the time had come. I held the mug with both hands and took a sip of the untouched coffee. Then another, and a bit more. With teary eyes, I asked if staying was still a choice and a right. The good monk nodded yes. As if revealing a discovery, I commented that Godofredo wasn’t an enemy. Even if he didn’t know it, and it wasn’t his intention, his role was to make me a better person. I had already learned that. The Elder agreed and warned: “Yes. But pay attention. The challenge is not in him, but within you. If you insist on changing him or making him regret his actions, you will be defeated by the exhaustion of a fight with no winners. What will remain is the destruction brought on by the pursuit of a power no one has the legitimacy to hold. The misunderstanding of who we are not is the true cause of all suffering; ignorance of life’s meaning is the source of all fears. No one’s attitude is responsible for the pain we feel; it only serves to reveal the fragility of our inner pillars on the verge of collapse.”
The monks, as all members of the Order are called, began to arrive for breakfast. It was time to end the conversation. Before that, however, I said I didn’t know what to do or how to act. The Elder pointed out: “Seek silence and stillness to generate an inner dialogue where you can clearly hear all your voices. Filter them. Discard those that encourage conflict or feed resentment, dependency, and incapacity. Watch out for the play of shadows that confuses pride with respect, revenge with justice, and giving up with detachment. Embrace the voice that advises the use of virtues; these attributes walk alongside truth. When you’re taken by an incredible sense of peace, you’ll know you’ve found the right equation. All uncertainties and insecurities vanish in the clarity of vision. If it doesn’t happen, it’s because there is still a fog of misunderstanding obscuring discernment, the lantern of consciousness.” Then he ended the conversation: “Remember that solving the problem doesn’t mean bending anyone to our desires, but freeing ourselves from the existential entanglements that prevent us from moving forward. This is the primary step toward freedom. It all comes down to you with yourself.” He winked and whispered: “To free oneself is to undo the inner misunderstandings that keep us from going beyond who we are.”
That day, I decided not to attend the classes. I went to walk in the mountains. I needed to be alone with myself, to talk with my voices, to welcome the laments and fears, to educate the shadows, to accept responsibility for my feelings, choices, and destiny. No one’s life is defined by another person’s behaviour or actions. Without this understanding, it’s impossible to mature and develop a true identity. I leaned against a rock when I reached a beautiful overlook from which I could see, in the distance, the charming little town with narrow, winding streets nestled at the foot of the mountain. I closed my eyes to enter the house where I live in myself. I threw open the windows to let the sunlight in. I opened the doors to the rooms, called everyone to the living room. Ego and soul, virtues and shadows, little by little, they all settled into the sofas and armchairs. I unlocked the trapdoor to the basement, where we keep painful memories or unconfessed guilt we avoid seeing but cannot stop living with. Everything that dwells within us manifests. Whether we want it to or not. When those who live hidden in the basement scream, being close to the foundations, a part of the house collapses. If nothing is done, in time, only the ruins of an unfinished mansion will remain. And haunted. That’s what we become when we abandon ourselves.
The initial impulse was to try to understand Godofredo, the reasons and motivations that led him to act in such a hostile way. A common and tempting mistake because of the escape route it offers. A vain escape. A backward movement due to the stagnation it causes. Compassion doesn’t arise from understanding someone else’s difficulties, but from simple acceptance. Accepting doesn’t mean agreeing, but respecting. I cannot demand from anyone the perfection I don’t have to offer. Each person carries within them a unique and complex universe. We are still on the journey to decipher our own riddles; to believe we are capable of navigating someone else’s labyrinth is a delusional presumption. Protect yourself from evil, respect everyone, do the good you can, and keep going, taught an ancient alchemist from Alexandria. My task was to understand why I granted the young monk so much power over my joy and choices, to the point of nearly giving up the important studies offered at the monastery.
Answering that question was the gateway to understanding why Godofredo’s behaviour held so much power over me. Yes, because otherwise it wouldn’t bother me at all. It’s natural for harsh attitudes to bring some degree of discomfort. In a balanced person, they last no more than brief moments. However, when they reach the point of influencing my choices and destiny, it signals something poorly constructed, incomplete, or misunderstood within me. This didn’t mean validating Godofredo’s actions, but understanding that the solutions to my suffering lay in no one but myself. Many voices gave their opinions. Some screamed in revolt, others whispered in fear. I let them speak. Since none of them brought me the sense of well-being typical of the use of virtues, I discarded them. After a while, I don’t know how long, I dozed off. I woke up to a serene voice saying: The void has an unbearable weight. I looked around, but there was no one. I laughed at the incoherence of a crazy dream. Come on, if it’s empty, how can it be heavy? An empty sack doesn’t move the scale’s needle. When we fail to recognize the void, anguish sets in. I heard the voice again. I was awake. I looked around again, thinking it was a prank by one of the monks. No one. The void is the manifestation of the unknown self within oneself, the voice continued. I waited a few more minutes for another word, but nothing more was added.
It wasn’t the moment to decipher the origin of that voice, but to understand the reach of its message. What remained was reflection. Slowly, I began assembling the puzzle. Anguish, that familiar feeling that something bad is lurking, derives from existential emptiness, the unknown within us that dominates while we can’t understand its origin and motives. A powerful and unidentified resident. These are the voices hidden in the basement. All suffering contains various degrees and levels of anguish, which adds weight to our days until they become unbearable. It is in this marginalized and still uncharted territory that anguish establishes an empire called emptiness, dragging the individual downward as if under gravitational force. A harrowing feeling of carrying a sensed yet unknown weight. Unable to identify the void, or not knowing how to extinguish it, we numb it with various distractions. In my case, I used dramatic flair to play the victim, a made-up character in the futile attempt to feel better. On the other hand, at the other end of the same tragedy, Godofredo used disguised aggressiveness to intoxicate his own emptiness with pills of supposed superiority. Despite being popular among the younger monks, unknowingly, instead of growing, he was withering. Both voids were growing. To extinguish the void is to fill oneself. The content doesn’t mean just knowledge, but movement. Not just any action, but virtuous movement. School first, workshop later.
As for what was my responsibility, and there was no denying it, every time I give someone the power to torment me, I reveal the void expressed through discomfort, sadness, or anger, signalling to the vain observer the internal cracks of a house well kept on the outside, but abandoned within. If each of us lives in ourselves, there are two options: either we start taking care of the foundations of the building we live in, or we’ll never inhabit a safe and pleasant place. Truth and virtues are the true existential pillars. There was the equation and the solution to the problem. I did an honest review of my journey, at least as far as my eyes could reach at that moment. Despite the many mistakes of the past, the present looked different. Not that the missteps had disappeared, far from it. There was a sincere effort in the reformulation of my personal code of ethics and a firm resolve never to give up on love as the guiding principle of my construction. Although the renovation of the house was far from finished, it was already becoming a pleasant place to live. As long as it’s free from any trace of pride and vanity, being aware of my achievements will always be important to remind me of who I am and the path I’ve walked. This is also a source of strength and balance. Forgetting the difficult stages we’ve overcome is a common way to devour joy to feed the void. A cruel way to forget oneself. And to abandon oneself.
Not believing in myself, devaluing my gifts, abilities, and achievements had created the internal void that allowed Godofredo to bother and corner me with his rude behaviour. Seeing myself as a victim increased the void. Understanding that my fragility and imbalance originated from not recognizing my own worth and progress helped me find the equation. What had made the building collapse was not the fury of the winds, but the absence of foundations that I had torn out myself. That realization allowed me to understand the reasons for the void and see that a simple inner movement would be capable of extinguishing it. Everything changes when our perspective changes. Undoing misunderstandings brings immeasurable power. Night was falling when I was overtaken by an indescribable feeling of well-being.
I returned to the monastery. The monks were having dinner in the cafeteria. After preparing my plate, I sat at the table with the other novice monks. At a nearby table, in a low enough voice not to be heard by the elder monks, but loud enough to be caught by those close by, Godofredo made a sarcastic comment about the fact that I had been gone all day. Many laughed. Unshaken, I looked at him calmly and asked the reason for that behaviour with a simple question: “Why do you act like that?” The laughter stopped immediately. Feigning surprise, Godofredo claimed it wasn’t a joke. “What feeling drives someone to make a demeaning and ironic comment?” I turned to the monks who had found it funny and asked with the same calmness: “What feeling makes you find offense amusing?” There was no answer. We finished dinner in silence.
All our feelings have names. It’s essential to recognize each one of them. This is a very important phase in the process of self-discovery. We like the good ones, but we struggle to admit the bad ones. Not rarely, we change their names to deceive ourselves. When we deny them, they become our guests. There’s no point in complaining; we were the ones who invited them to stay. They are the hidden dwellers of the basement. Or, in many cases, they live in other rooms disguised in the lies we love to believe. The greatest danger, and the most common one, is when their speeches are heard as if they were the voice of truth. In those moments, unadmitted prejudice presents itself as a joke, or unconfessed anger manifests through contempt and sarcasm.
Heavy feelings remain attached to the image of those who hurt us, creating an unpleasant and harmful atmosphere inside the house. They need to be let go. It may seem paradoxical and incoherent. And it is. They only stay because we keep them from leaving. I had to recognize the anger that pulled me out of my axis of light and threw me into the abyss of existence. As long as hatred wasn’t transmuted into compassion, I wouldn’t be able to forgive Godofredo so that he would no longer remain as an unwanted guest.
The reaction wasn’t what I had hoped for, but it was predictable. Since Godofredo had a controlling personality and remarkable charisma, he felt uncomfortable and exposed by the conversation we had in the cafeteria, and he distanced himself from me, taking a group of followers with him. Except for two or three young monks, the rest began to ignore me, to the point of no longer even greeting me. The environment became quite unpleasant. It was the moment for the workshop, to put into practice the foundations I had built upon truth and virtues, if they truly existed. I hadn’t done anything wrong; the conversation we had, though firm and honest, wasn’t marked by any trace of aggression. I had simply questioned him as a way to place him before the mirror of consciousness so he might become aware of the feelings that genuinely moved him. Continuing with them was Godofredo’s choice. Mine was to work on refining my own feelings, since, after all, they lived within me and defined the atmosphere of my house. I could no longer allow anyone’s behaviour to rob me of peace. Those were difficult days. Whenever rejection brought me bad feelings, I reminded myself that I was in the workshop, transforming the experience into strength and balance. So I would give thanks and try my best to make good use of it. No test is easy. If I succeeded, another stage of the work would be complete.
Dealing with rejection is never easy. Still, I needed to know if I was already capable of moving forward without anyone’s approval. My happiness didn’t need anyone else’s validation to brighten my days. I reminded myself of this constantly. Gradually, I was able to drive away the harmful influences born of my own misunderstandings and imbalances. I began to understand the power of strength and to feel the pillars that sustained me to get through harsh situations with balance, without losing the softness and lightness of my movements. I felt better every day, even though the relationships hadn’t changed.
Until one afternoon, near the end of that study period, when everyone was in class, I went to the cafeteria for a mug of coffee. To my surprise, Godofredo was sitting in a chair at the back of the room, his head buried in his hands. My initial reaction was to grab my coffee and leave. I didn’t like him. The voice that speaks the loudest, or first, is not always the wisest. Nothing is by chance, whispered the same voice I had heard in the mountains. I overcame my initial instincts. I realized this experience was also necessary as a complement to the previous one. I grabbed two mugs of coffee and sat beside him. He raised his head, looked at me for a brief moment, and lowered it again. His face was soaked in tears. We sat in silence for a few minutes. I broke it by saying I would only leave if he asked me to. Otherwise, I would keep him company for as long as necessary. The young monk said he didn’t need me. Nor did he want anyone’s pity. He told me to go away. I picked up the mug, and just as I was about to get up, I changed my mind. I said I would stay. Godofredo asked if it was so I could revel in his suffering. I replied no. I said that pain, if well used, has the power to bring people together and to dissolve through the unplanned love that arises when the shell of misunderstanding is broken. He told me I wouldn’t be able to understand what he was feeling. Then he said he hadn’t been invited to his mother’s second wedding. And then he began to sob. Throughout his life, he had sought from his mother the same love she gave his siblings. He never found it. This hurt him deeply. It always had. I held his hands between mine as a gesture of solidarity. I waited for his sobs to stop without saying a word. In the end, I said I couldn’t feel his pain, no one could, because each person feels in their own way, in how the situation flows and is handled within. We are unique. Still, I could feel compassion for the suffering that surrounded him. Rejection had been my companion since adolescence. We were close. Even more, rejection had taught me to find love and acceptance in the most unlikely places and people. Love has no address or surname. You just have to not give up on loving.
It was only the beginning of a long and meaningful conversation. We discovered something in common. We had faced very similar experiences, as if we belonged to the same emotional tribe. We exchanged stories with the clear sense that one perfectly understood what the other was saying. Even if words weren’t enough, the heart supplied the missing comprehension. Godofredo wasn’t immediately cured of the pain that created the immense void that troubled him. But that’s where the process began. It was also the start of a deep friendship that solidified over time. He became the best man at my wedding, and I baptized his firstborn.
On the last day of that study cycle, I found the Elder pruning roses in the monastery’s inner garden. When he saw me, he commented that I carried in my face a joy and peace that seemed impossible on that dawn when I had considered leaving the Order. I smiled. Then he noted: “None of the courses you took offered the lessons Godofredo did. The same applies in reverse. Together, each in his own way and understanding, you learned how to identify and fill your own existential voids.” I asked if Godofredo’s attempt to isolate me from the group had been an unconscious way of projecting onto someone else the pain of the rejection he felt. The good monk shrugged and reflected: “What difference does it make whether those were his motives or not?” Then he concluded: “The achievement lies in the victory of light over darkness. You both succeeded. Everything else matters less.” He curved his lips into a smile and finished the lesson: “This planetary school has some excellent teachers. Two of them, though wonderful, almost never receive the recognition they deserve for their role and impact: mistakes and relationships. When properly embraced, they offer immeasurable opportunities for transformation.” He slipped the pruning shears into his coat pocket and said he needed to prepare for the closing lecture of that study cycle. I watched him walk away with slow but steady steps.
Translated by Cazmilian Zórdic.
